


I Just Needed You To Know

by leyley09



Series: What They Call Love Is A Risk [3]
Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Declarations Of Love, Don’t copy to another site, Friends to Lovers, Light Dom/sub, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-30
Updated: 2019-04-30
Packaged: 2020-02-10 02:32:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,631
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18651127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leyley09/pseuds/leyley09
Summary: André learns something about himself... at the worst possible time.





	I Just Needed You To Know

**Author's Note:**

> First, let me say I'm so sorry this took so long, but I get distracted. And when I did start back into this some five months ago, Nick would not cooperate with me, so I had to give up on that and see if Andre wanted to tell me this story. Fortunately, he was more cooperative.
> 
> Second, any dialogue in italics is meant to be considered Swedish. I had enough trouble writing this thing; translating this much dialogue properly was a level of effort I could not give.
> 
> Third, please enjoy this [companion playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2FjBoYnNNYVRIOmudGIa4C). The amount of Swedish pop on it is entirely Andre's fault. He's screwed my Spotify recommendations up so bad.

Sometimes love creeps up on you slowly, like the dawn. Sometimes it grows naturally, like a wildflower.

Other times, it runs you over like a derailed freight train at 11 am on a Sunday.

 

Brunch with Mike and Tom was supposed to be fun and relaxing. They hadn’t even left the building. (Well, no one except Mike had left the building, but he’s weird about Tom’s Sunday morning coffee.) They’re in their pajamas, for fuck’s sake.

André is very much of the opinion that you should either have on real pants or no pants at all when this happens. You shouldn’t just have the thought “god I love you” float across your consciousness for the first time while you’re wearing flannel pants with cartoon moose on them and chewing scrambled eggs. And definitely not less than 24 hours before the person you’re thinking it about gets on an airplane to fly more than 4,000 miles away.

 

The universe owes him a refund.

 

Nicke’s been here for _six weeks_ ; it isn’t like there hasn’t been time for Cupid to jab him in the heart or the brain or whatever. _Six weeks_ he could have been doing something about this instead of choking on partially chewed eggs with a picture of Nicke’s packed luggage flashing before his eyes.

 

He needs a refund with interest.

 

“You okay, Burkie?” Tom interrupts Mike’s story to ask.

Great, excellent, everyone’s looking at him. “Yeah.”

They don’t look convinced as he continues to cough,. but he’s not actually choking anymore so brunch continues - just with less input than usual from him. If asked, he’d blame it on the scratchiness of his throat from the coughing. In all honesty, he can’t pin down a coherent thought. He’s having less of a train of thought than a bouncy ball of thought, careening off all possible subjects with significantly more force than expected.

He tries to pull himself together as everyone else starts cleaning up. It’s time for him and Nicke to clear out, and thank god they had plans to catch a movie. That’s at least two hours that he won’t have to make conversation. Maybe by then he’ll have gotten past this weird, random thought.

 

****

 

He does not get past the thought. He shoves it to one side enough that he can answer questions and make some kind of conversation about the movie as they walk back to the apartment, but it’s still there, hovering. He knows he’s being kind of strange; he can see Nicke’s concern radiating off him. But Nicke’s concerned about him a lot, for a myriad of reasons, so they should both be used to that by now.

Back at home, he breaks out a stack of video games as a distraction. Nicke’s far better at most of these than he is and not above rubbing it in. It’s effective; they’re both too busy shouting at each other and the television screen to bring up André’s weird quietness all day or the fact that 24 hours from now, Nicke will be on another continent.

 

****

 

Monday morning is a quiet affair. Just as he’s done every work day during his visit, Nicke makes him breakfast. (This is the longest stretch of consistent breakfast eating André’s had since he left home.)

There’s very little conversation - Nicke’s not usually chatty in the morning, and all André can think, over and over and over, is “I love you, I love you, I love you” and he’s certainly not going to say that.

Eventually, he has to go to work. Nicke follows him into the hall, hovering awkwardly while André puts on his coat.

“Travel safe.” He puts on a smile that he doesn’t feel.

Nicke rolls his eyes and hugs him.

It’s not the first time, it’s not the tenth time, it’s probably not the five thousandth time. He’s a handsy friend, and Nicke has been his favorite target since they were kids. Nicke fits into him in exactly the way he did when he arrived - just enough shorter that he has to stretch to put his chin on André’s shoulder, just enough slighter that he makes André feel bigger and stronger than he actually is.

This hug feels like every other hug they’ve ever had, which means either his brain is very confused about how feelings work or he’s been oblivious for a very long time.

(He’s self-aware enough to know it’s probably the latter.)

“Thanks for letting me stay so long,” Nicke mumbles into his ear.

“You could have stayed even longer.”

“Maybe next time.” Nicke’s smile doesn’t really reach his eyes either. “You should go before you’re late.”

 

****

 

He’s never been prouder of his own foresight than he is when he remembers he told Mike not to wait for him today. If a few tears leak out in the elevator, that’s just between him and the security camera.

His slightly spastic reputation in the office works out in his favor as well. No one but Mike seems to notice anything out of the ordinary.

“Nick get off okay?”

André blinks. Blinks again. His English is pretty decent, but it’s not flawless. So he might be mistaken, but he thinks Mike just asked him a dirty question.

“Get off?”

“Yeah, did he get to the airport alright?”

Oh. English is a dumb language. “He did. His flight’s in about an hour.”

He expects that to be it; of course, it’s not. Mike’s still standing next to his desk, starting to frown.

“Are you okay with that?”

“Sure.” André says, eyes glued to a screen he’s not seeing. “He couldn’t stay forever.”

“That’s debatable.”

Brooks yells for Mike before André has to ask what that means. (Brooks is currently his favorite co-worker.)

 

****

 

His reprieve lasts until the end of the day. He considered trying to sneak out early or even manufacturing an excuse to stay late, but Mike’s been watching him like a hawk for the last half hour.

On the platform waiting for their train, he can’t take the staring any more. “What is your problem today?”

“You’re really okay that Nick is gone?”

“Yes, I really am. This is what happens when your friends don’t live in the same city, Mike. They visit, and then they leave. It’s fine.”

“Jesus, sorry I asked. Obviously, you’re great.” Mike rolls his eyes. “Do you want to have dinner with us?”

“Not tonight, thanks.”

 

****

 

After having someone else breathing in his apartment for so long, it is painfully quiet when it’s just him. There’s no avoiding the elephant in the room - he’s either going crazy or he’s actually in love with Nicke.

Starfished on the living room floor, he stares at the ceiling until it starts to blur.

The honest truth is that he doesn’t think he’s ever been really and truly “in love” before. He’s had warm-fuzzy feelings about a few people, but it never lingers long enough to be called more than a crush.

After listening to both Tom and Mike talk about each other and how they feel over the last several weeks, he knows he’s never felt like that about anyone. No one has ever been that important to his daily life.

 

No one except Nicke.

 

André’s always had the attention span of a cocker spaniel. From the time they were children, he’s bounced from idea to idea, toy to toy, plan to project to impossible dream. Nicke was the one that kept him from walking out into traffic or off piers, the weight that prevented him from floating into the atmosphere like a balloon.

He drifts from person to person, place to place, but always in an orbit around Nicke.

Nicke’s the one he wants to tell news to first and the one he turns to when he needs to be comforted. He ignores his mom’s phone calls, but he’s cancelled plans to video chat with Nicke.

His parents and sisters came to visit right after he moved into this apartment. It was nice to see them for the first four days; after that, he was counting days until they were gone. They didn’t make him miss home. He’d thought that was weird at the time, but he’d figured that meant that he was happy in D.C. and left it at that.

He’s never felt more at home anywhere in his entire fucking life than he has for the last six weeks, with Nicke making a mess in his kitchen and falling asleep on his sofa and hogging all the hot water in the shower.

Tom once told him that being without Mike felt like not being able to breathe properly. This doesn’t feel like that at all.

It feels like suddenly being able to feel your heartbeat - it’s always been there, deep inside you, making everything work, but it’s such an integral part of you that you don’t notice it until something special happens.

His heartbeat even sounds like Nicke’s name.

  


“Yeah, you’re definitely 100% fine that Nick left.”

 

He screams, rolling away from the intruder before his brain registers that it’s Mike talking. “Fuck you, dude, have you never heard of knocking?”

“We did knock,” Tom yells from the kitchen. “We knocked, like, a thousand times. We let ourselves in when you didn’t answer because we thought you might be dead.”

The extra smile in his eyes as he hands André one of his own beers underscores what he’d already assumed - Mike was the one panicking. André’s probably lucky they have a key; he has no doubt Tom would take down doors to make Mike happy.

“I’m not that upset. I just needed to think.”

They stare at him expectantly. He’s tempted to try to wait them out, just to be annoying, but he wants an outside opinion.

“I had a thought yesterday that I’d never had before, and I needed to make sure it wasn’t just a random, weird thing.” It’s a lot harder to say this out loud than he’d thought it would be. “I think I’m in love with Nicke.”

There’s a dull thud that turns out to have been Mike, pounding his head against the arm of the love seat. Tom is doing a barely adequate job of fighting off a laugh.

“You guys could pretend to be surprised.”

“No, André, we really can’t.” Mike says into the upholstery. “He was here FOR SIX FUCKING WEEKS, did you seriously just figure this out YESTERDAY?”

“Yes.”

Tom loses his battle, laughing so hard he has to set his beer down before it spills. “Oh my god, Burkie, you’re almost worse than we are.”

“That’s hardly true. You two were disgustingly in love with each other and oblivious.”

“Jesus christ.” Mike finally sits up. “You’re not serious right now.”

“I think he might be, babe.”

“Serious about what?”

“Burkie, Nick is - to quote you - _disgustingly_ in love with you. Just the way he looks at you gives people cavities. The man could have gone anywhere for a vacation, and he flew halfway around the globe to crash in your guest room, where the main source of entertainment was Say Yes to the Dress marathons and watching Tom and I make fools of ourselves. And he stayed for SIX WEEKS.”

André doesn’t really know what to say to that.

“I never outright asked him, okay, but there were enough moments in between judging me for being stupid about Tom when he said stuff that really doesn’t make sense unless he was feeling about you the way I was feeling about Tom.”

Across the room, his phone starts to vibrate. They all look at it before Mike reaches over to pick it up. André cuts him off before he can talk. “It’s Nicke.”

“How can you tell?”

“That’s his vibration pattern.”

“He has his own vibration pattern?!”

“Stop looking at me like I’m a freak! My phone’s on vibrate more than anything else, and I needed a way to tell it was him texting. It’s a legit option in your phone. It’s called Heartbeat.”

This time, when they both turn to stare at him like he’s nuts, he can’t help laughing. God, he is such a fucking idiot. “Can I have my phone please?”

Mike tosses it to him then chugs the rest of his beer. “I’m not sure I’m drunk enough to deal with this.”

“Stay out of my vodka, you lush,” André says, already paying more attention to his phone than his friends.

 

**_Finally made it home. Almost fell asleep on the train._ **

 

**Glad u made it. Was getting worried. <3**

 

**_Miss you already_ **

 

**Missed u before u left. Call me when ur not jet lagged.**

 

**_< 3 <3_ **

 

“For fuck’s sake, Burkie.”

“It’s rude to read other people’s messages, Michael.”

Mike rolls his eyes and hands him a glass. “So what are you going to do?”

“Do?”

“You just watched a disaster of a situation that could have been prevented at any point by one of us being honest about our feelings, and you don’t think you should do something about this?”

“What am I going to do? I mean, Nicke lives in another country; I don’t want to leave here. I miss enough just being his friend. I can’t date him from there - I will actually go crazy.”

“Have you considered that maybe he would come here?” Tom asks.

“No?”

“That’s odd, because he told me a few times that he was sort of looking for jobs here, just out of curiosity, he said, but you know. I think maybe if you asked him to come back he would.”

“He mentioned that to me too, right after he got here.” Mike says. “So, back to the question, what are you going to do?”

“Can I think about it? I’ve only known about this for 36 hours.”

“That’s fair.” Tom nods.

“Is it?”

“Mikey, it took you like two years to work up the nerve, and I had to practically move out to get you to confess. I think Burkie can probably wait a couple days before you sit on him and force him to call Nick.”

“Fine. I want to hear a plan on Thursday.”

“Okay, Mike.” It’s his turn to roll his eyes.

 

****

 

His phone starts to buzz just as he’s stepping out of the shower, Nicke’s familiar pattern bringing a smile to his face practically before he’s processed the noise.

“ _Perfect timing.”_

Nicke laughs. _“I was hoping I’d remembered your routine right.”_

 _“How was your travel?”_ He switches the call to speaker, setting the phone on the dresser while he flips through options in the closet.

_“Delays in New York, but not too bad. I fell asleep on the way to Copenhagen, and I don’t think I ever recovered. I barely got my shoes off before I got in bed, and I didn’t move until about half an hour ago. How’d you spend your first day alone in ages?”_

_“At work, the usual, you know. Mike and Tom let themselves in to keep me company right before you texted me last night.”_

_“I’m glad you weren’t all by yourself.”_

_“Me too.”_ André finishes buttoning his shirt, debating what he wants to say next. His mouth decides without him. _“It’s really quiet now.”_

The silence from Nicke’s side lasts a couple beats too long. _“Are you eating breakfast?”_

André looks guiltily at the kitchen, which he’d had no intention of stepping in until after work. _“Ummm…”_

Nicke sighs. _“I left some pancakes in the fridge. It’ll take 30 seconds to heat them up. You have time.”_

André’s bouncing between being endeared that Nicke is taking care of him from 4,000 miles away and sobbing because Nicke is taking care of him _from 4,000 miles away_. He settles for drowning his pancakes in the lingonberry syrup Nicke brought him.

Nicke chatters, quite uncharacteristically, as André eats his breakfast. He talks about the people he saw wandering around JFK, the cute kids that were sitting across from him on the flight, the hours he’s going to spend doing laundry to get rid of the suitcase smell. It’s almost as good as having him sitting across the table. Well, maybe not “almost”. But it’s certainly better than the deafening silence that he woke up to.

Tom and Mike were right - he needs to do something about this. It’s been 24 hours, and he’s already miserable.

“ _Shouldn’t you be getting ready to go? Mike will be waiting.”_

_“In a minute. That, um, actually reminds me. Last night- Tom said you were job hunting while you were here?”_

He and Nicke haven’t had an awkward silence since they were 15 and Nicke walked in on him kissing their hockey team’s goalie.

_“I did a couple times, I was just curious, I guess. You know I’m between jobs right now, and it’s always nice to see what the freelance market looks like in other places.”_

He sounds mostly calm and rational, except for the tiniest waver that no one but André (or maybe his mom) would notice. It’s even a plausible excuse, but you can google freelance graphic design jobs from anywhere in the world.

It’s not a lot, but he wants to hope that Tom and Mike are right so bad that he’ll take it.

_"You should have said something. Maybe I could have helped?”_

_“Really?”_

_“I mean, if you decided you wanted to go back to Sweden, you can decide whatever you want, but you know that I’d always rather have you here, right?”_

_“Thanks ‘Dre.”_ Nicke doesn’t sound as touched as he’d hoped. He sounds...resigned? Like he’s not happy with that statement but knows he should be. _“You should probably get going.”_

_“Yeah, yeah. Get some sleep, okay?”_

_“Bye ‘Dre.”_

He doesn’t like the way it sounds when the phone disconnects. It sounds like every inch of the 4,000 miles between them.

 

****

 

Normally, he’d feel bad about looking up other jobs on his work computer, but he doesn’t really have a lot of options right now. He needs to make a decision fast - is he willing to go back to Sweden for Nicke?

He’s not about to move back in with his parents if he can help it; he knows they’d welcome him, and he does love his family. But living alone, without anyone around to “supervise” or judge him, is something he doesn’t want to give up unless it’s absolutely necessary. And even if Nicke is happy about his confession, that doesn’t mean he wants to support him like some kind of sugar baby - he’s not _that_ much older. So, André needs to make sure there’s some options out there for him to fall back on, just in case.

He’s never looked this shifty at work, he’s certain of it. Anytime someone comes within five feet of his desk, he’s minimizing browser windows like he’s looking at porn instead of careerbuilder.se.

By late afternoon, he’s determined that he _could_ go back to Sweden and survive, but he isn’t completely sure that he wants to.

He left Sweden for a reason, after all. He needed _more_ out of his life than he felt he was getting, both from his hometown and from all the people he know. People here in D.C. didn’t know him five, ten years ago; they don’t have an image of past!André in their minds coloring all their interactions with him. He gets to be himself here -- not just Robert and Pernilla’s son, not just the kid that fell into the Malmö Castle moat six times, not just that guy with a reputation for being allergic to commitment.

Can he go back to all that?

 

****

 

He thinks about that for the rest of Tuesday, for far more of the night than he should, for most of Wednesday. He gets sporadic snaps and texts from Nicke, far less than what he was used to before his visit. (He starts and discards dozens of messages of his own before he starts wondering if that’s what Nicke is doing as well.)

Just before he leaves work on Wednesday, he gets a snap from Nicke.

It’s actually a decent shot of the Castle, lit from below since it’s already after dark in Malmö. Nicke must be headed into the park for some reason that becomes less important when André catches sight of what else is in the picture. Almost out of frame on the left hand side, a couple has stepped out of the path. It’s too dark to see how exactly they’re standing, but they’re so close it’s hard to tell there’s two of them. He can’t tell if they’re just cuddling and enjoying the view or kissing in what they assume is the shadows, but he’s hit with such a sudden wave of jealousy that he has to sit down.

He wants to be there, right now, with Nicke. He wants to be able to nudge him, point out the couple that Nicke’s probably politely ignoring and suggest that they give them some tips. He’d add in the eyebrow waggle that always makes Nicke roll his eyes and blush, then drag him into the shadows of one of the better groups of trees and make him forget what they came out there for.

So yeah, if going back to Malmö is the only way he can be with Nicke, then yes, he’ll go.

Mike scares the shit out of him a moment later putting a hand on his shoulder. “You alright, buddy?”

André watches the snap time out to be replaced with a poorly lit selfie and a caption that says _“I_ _might ask the city to rename this moat after you”_.

“I don’t know, Mike. I really don’t know.”

 

****

 

Thursday morning, it’s raining so hard that Tom makes them take his car to the office instead of walking to the Metro. André’s not complaining; he would have hated to spend the morning in damp clothes. Mike is complaining; he hates to drive downtown and spends the entire trip swearing creatively at the stupid shit everyone else is doing because of the rain.

The other benefit is that Mike’s too busy yelling to remember that he wanted to hear about André’s plan.

(He should have known it wouldn’t be that easy.)

A little after 11, a calendar invite pops up in his email. It’s for a meeting in the smaller conference room at 11:30, from Nicky. He doesn’t have anything else scheduled, so he accepts it without looking too carefully at it.

(That was a mistake.)

He lets himself into the room a couple of minutes late, juggling his laptop and coffee and the doorknob to find Nicky, Brooks, and TJ lined up on the opposite side of the table from him.

“Goddammit, Mike.”

Mike, leaning against the head of the table, just smirks at him. “It is much more fun to call these meetings than to be ambushed by them. Sit down, André.”

“After everything we’ve all been through in the last couple of months, we really expected better of you, Burkie.” Brooks shakes his head. “How could you possibly have let that boy get on a plane?”

“While I do appreciate you waiting to have your crisis until after we were done with Mike’s, I was hoping you would be able to take care of it without our help.” Nicky actually looks about five seconds away from disowning him out of sheer embarrassment.

TJ shrugs. “I’m just here because you guys are more entertaining than my department.”

Nicky and Brooks snicker at that while Mike rolls his eyes.

André puts his coffee and laptop down and points at Mike. “You said I had until Thursday night to tell you my plan. I have at least seven hours left.”

“No, I said ‘Thursday’, there was no ‘night’ included.”

“It was implied!”

“Children, please. Let’s leave the shouting to the executives. Do you have a plan, André?”

“Yes! Just - how soon can I have a week off?”

“Well, policy says for more than a day or two you need to request your time at least two weeks in advance.”

“Nicky, I can’t--”

“HOWEVER,” Nicky interrupts, “if you were to tell me that it was for a family emergency, I could approve it as a special circumstance and you could have next week off.”

André loves Nicky, he really does. He’s the best fourth cousin that André’s got (and he’s got too many of those). He gave him a place to stay without question, made sure he had enough survival skills to not die immediately, and then left him to his own devices - in other words, he’s the only family member André’s got that treats him like an actual fucking adult instead of an overgrown child. If it wasn’t for the fact that Nicky could probably also kill him with his bare hands (and probably wouldn’t hesitate to), he’d climb right across this table and hug him.

“Stop looking at me like that and go back to work. You’ve got a lot to get done before you leave.”

“Okay, Nicky. Thank you.”

Nicky dismisses him with a wave that would look like he didn’t give a shit if you couldn’t see the smile in his eyes. TJ is blatantly giggling, Brooks looks more proud of him than he has any right to, and Mike is already texting Tom the details (he assumes, it’s not like Mike texts that many people who aren’t in this room.)

Back at his desk, he puts in an “emergency” time off request for the following week and buys himself a plane ticket to Copenhagen for Saturday.

 

****

 

He has to talk Tom, Mike, and Brooks out of driving him to the airport (you get in one car that’s not your Uber and suddenly you can’t be trusted to go anywhere alone). Mike is, of course, the most stubborn about it, but he doesn’t really want to get out of bed at 5 am when Tom’s only gotten into bed at 3.

Unsurprisingly, there aren’t that many people waiting for a 7 am flight on a Saturday, and the flight itself goes smoothly. His layover at JFK is supposed to be 3 hours, which is just about enough time to get some lunch and trashy reading material for the 7 and a half hours to Copenhagen.

They take off on time, there’s an empty seat next to him, and he didn’t see any babies in his immediate vicinity - this is going to be the best flight he’s ever been on.

It is -- until they’ve been in the air for almost 5 hours. One of the pilots overrides the movie he’s partially paying attention to in order to inform the passengers that there’s been some kind of medical emergency and they’re going to have to make an emergency landing in Reykjavík.

Reykjavík is nowhere near where he needs to be.

He never does hear what the actual emergency is - it must be happening in business class where he can’t see it - but they make everyone disembark. No one understands why they can’t just stay on the same plane, even after the flight attendant tries to explain. Something about fuel levels and safety regulations, and honestly André stopped listening after they said it would be at least an hour before another plane is available.

There’s nothing to be done about that except buy more junk food and send increasingly salty texts to Mike.

It is precisely 72 minutes and 23 seconds before the gate attendant announces that their new plane is ready for boarding. He’s got about two hours to nap before they get to Copenhagen, then he’ll have to figure out whether he wants to show up at Nicke’s door in the middle of the night or be polite and wait until it’s at least daylight.

He settles into his seat, puts on his brand new “Nicke [heart emoji]” playlist, and closes his eyes.

 

****

 

45 minutes out of Copenhagen, he’s awake again and not sure why. Glancing around the cabin, he can see several people who look a bit annoyed; he flags down a passing flight attendant to ask what’s going on.

“There’s a severe storm over Copenhagen; we’re being diverted to Hamburg.”

“Hamburg.”

“Yes, in Germany.”

His shocked silence must signal the conversation is over because the attendant continues towards the rear of the plane. He has several thousand more questions though, mainly, where the fuck is Hamburg?

Geography hasn’t ever been a favorite of his, so while he at least knows Hamburg is in Germany, he couldn’t point it out on a map to save his life.

An hour and a half later, standing in an empty gate inside the international terminal, he discovers it’s more than 200 miles from where he wants to be. The storm is moving so slowly that the airline doesn’t expect to get a flight into Copenhagen until late in the afternoon.

Since it’s 3:45 am local time…. He just really cannot bring himself to wait that long.

There’s a train that could get him to Malmö in about 7 hours. Or he could rent a car and drive it in 5. That’s not even a choice. He’s suddenly really grateful he hasn’t had anyone to spend his money on for the last couple years.

It takes nearly an hour, even still, to get him on the road, what with sorting out a refund for the rest of his flight and finding there’s only one rental agency open at this hour. He makes sure he can operate the built-in GPS and makes one stop for more caffeine than anyone should let him have in a 24-hour period.

Time to go get his man.

 

****

 

After a couple of energy drinks in the car, he’s barely able to sleep on the ferry. He needs more sleep - he’s exhausted - but he knows he’s just screwing his sleep schedule up even more napping. A voice in his head that sounds a lot like Nicke points out the selection of hotels around the harbor and reminds him that it’s not a good idea to drive when he’s this tired.

He cracks another energy drink and drives off the ferry.

 

****

 

He drives into Copenhagen during morning rush hour, because that is just how his life works now. He’s so tired he wants to cry.

That may also be a side effect of the energy drinks. He doesn’t really know. He stopped after the fourth one when he started shaking, but that may have been two or three too many.

Normally, he likes Copenhagen, but it’s currently pissing rain which makes the traffic worse than usual. It crosses his mind briefly that he could give up the car at the airport here, but then he’d have to wait for a train, wait for a ride share at the other end, and it’s not worth it. He’d probably fall asleep in the station and wake up sometime tomorrow.

The miles creep by like everything is moving in slow motion. Getting past the airport is excruciating, and he’s halfway across the _Øresundsbron_ before he remembers the toll. He’s starting to feel like everything is conspiring against him.

 

****

 

Nicke lives in a tiny house on the southeast side of the city, not far off the motorway. That is a great blessing at the moment. It’s just past 10 AM, local time; that’s 4 AM D.C. time. He’s had maybe 4 hours of sleep in the last 24 hours, none of which has been good or restful. He’s shaking so much, from exhaustion or over-caffeination or nerves, that he drops the car keys on the floorboard the second they’re free of the ignition.

It’s still pouring down rain, water falling from the sky not so much in drops as in sheets and streams. The clouds are dark and ominous in the background of the snap he sends Mike and Tom.

“That’s a bad omen,” a voice like Mike’s says in his head.

“Shut up, drama queen,” he says with a glare at his own reflection in the rear view mirror.

The rain shows no sign of letting up. He takes a deep breath or five, counts himself down from three, throws open the car door, and runs. The patch of grass between the curb and the stoop is waterlogged and slippery, and he’s not at his most coordinated. He nearly faceplants a couple times.

Huddled under the overhang, which is doing absolutely nothing to keep him dry, it occurs to him that he has no idea if Nicke is home.

The doorbell chime echoes through the house, barely louder than the rain pelting down on the street behind him. Seconds tick by; he can’t hear if anyone’s moving in the house. The shaking is sliding into shivering, rain running down his neck and raising goosebumps all over his skin every time there’s a gust of wind.

When the door does open, it scares him half to death.

 _“André? What the-- get inside_.”

It’s so warm and dry inside that he goes a bit fuzzy for a minute. He doesn’t notice Nicke taking the car keys from him and only sort of notices him fighting his sodden jacket off. When he focuses in next, Nicke’s right in front of him, clearly having tried to get his attention more than once.

 _“Come on, you need to get out of those clothes._ "

Even without his shoes, he trails water from the front door to the bathroom. Wet clothes exchanged for a pair of Nicke’s sweats and a hoodie that André’s almost certain was once his, he goes where Nicke points and curls up in a corner of the sofa under Grandma Sorenson’s quilt while Nicke makes too much noise in the kitchen.

He closes his eyes, just until Nicke gets back.

 

****

 

When he opens his eyes again, he’s not sure where he is for a second. His biggest clue is a voice that gets steadily louder, like it’s getting closer.

“He drove from where? Why would- Okay, that’s great, but why is he here? What do you mean you can’t tell me why he’s here? He shows up unannounced, looking like he’d been run over by a bus and half drowned, and then passes out on my sofa for hours, but you won’t tell me what the hell he’s here for?”

“Nicke?”

“Never mind. Tell Mike you both suck.” Nicke appears in his field of vision, crouching in front of the sofa with an expression André is unfortunately all too familiar with - his “oh god what have you done to yourself now” face. “ _Are you okay?_ ”

He can’t begin to contain his smile. _“I am now."_

Nicke’s frown gets deeper. _“How many of those energy drinks did you actually have?_ ”

_“How did you know about those?”_

_“I brought your stuff in from the car_ , _and there are empty cans everywhere_.”

“ _Just the four. I think.”_

Nicke’s eyebrows nearly leave his face. _“ Just four?! André, that’s-- what the hell was so important that you couldn’t stop to sleep?”_

_“You are.”_

Nicke gives up on his crouch. André’s seen this before too - Nicke was hoping this was going to be a short explanation, but, honestly, it never is with him.

_“You saw me a week ago.”_

_“I know, but a week ago I was oblivious and stupid.”_ His eyes are starting to cross trying to look at Nicke sideways, so he sits up. “ _I need to tell you something, and I needed to say it to your face, so here I am.”_

Nicke looks almost as nervous as he feels right now. He’d thought saying this out loud to Mike and Tom had been difficult, but that was nothing.

He’s not good at this - he doesn’t have any past experiences to fall back on here. What he does have, though, is a ridiculous collection of rom-coms.

"I came here because when you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible."

Nicke looks confused - it might not have been fair to switch languages mid-conversation like that - but then his eyes narrow. “ _Did you just quote When Harry Met Sally at me?”_

André half shrugs. “ _Yes?_ ”

“ _You flew thousands of miles and drove a couple hundred more, fucked yourself all up with energy drinks, and you couldn’t come up with anything better than that?”_

It surprises a laugh out of him. That’s not the reaction he was hoping for, but it’s fair. _“No, I mean, okay -- I love you? My whole life kind of revolves around you, even across an ocean, and nowhere feels like home without you. My heartbeat sounds like your name. I’m sorry I’m slow - I just thought that was how you were supposed to feel about your best friend. I don’t want to feel like this with an ocean between us - I’ve only been truly aware of it for a week, but I could hardly stand those six days. I need to be able to see you, hear you, touch you. And I’d really like it if we could do that in Washington, but-- but if we have to stay here to make that happen then I’m prepared to do that.”_

A crack of thunder startles both of them, electricity flickering briefly. It draws attention to the couple of tears that have escaped from Nicke’s eyes.

“ _Was that better? I don’t- I don’t really know how to do this. But-- You make me want to try harder.”_

Nicke sniffs and his voice is shaky. _“ Yeah, ‘Dre, that was better.”_

_“Are you-- Do you-- I mean, Mike said he thought so, but that doesn’t mean anything. He didn’t notice Tom’s feelings for years, so I don’t know how much I trust his judgement. And the guys at the office kind of hinted, but I never can tell when they’re pranking me, although this would be a really shitty prank, but--”_

_“André”_

_“What?”_

_“Could you shut up so I can answer the question you never actually asked?”_

_“Oh. Yes.”_ Just to make sure, he claps his free hand over his mouth.

Nicke rolls his eyes. _“Mike wasn’t wrong. I don’t remember not feeling like this about you, but there didn’t seem to be a point saying anything. You were always flitting between other people, so it seemed pretty obvious you didn’t feel like that about me. And then you left.”_ He looks away, clearing his throat. _“You wouldn’t even let me get out of the car to say goodbye. I felt like I left most of my heart in front of the departures terminal.”_

André wants to throw himself into traffic for ever making him feel like that.

_“Hey, it’s okay. You didn’t know; it wasn’t on purpose. I’m not mad.”_

He shakes his head. _“No, I know you’re not mad now. But I’m allowed to be sorry that I hurt you, whether I knew I did it at the time or not.”_

Nicke sniffs again and gives him the sweetest smile. _“Okay then, you’re forgiven. I was really doing okay when I came to see you. I promise. Sometimes it sucked a little, but I was used to it. And then we watched all that utter nonsense with Mike and Tom. I wondered a little bit if maybe I had a blind spot like Mike did, maybe I’d just convinced myself you couldn’t be interested in me and I was ignoring all evidence to the contrary. I almost told you, thought maybe it would be better to just know for sure, so I could stop hoping.”_

_“Why didn’t you?”_

_“I chickened out. I was going to tell you one night after dinner that last week, and then you put on a movie and snuggled up next to me. I had this panic vision of how that could all go away if you really weren’t interested in me like that, and I changed my mind.”_ He shrugs. _“Would I have been wrong?”_

_“I don’t actually know. I hadn’t noticed then, so maybe I would have just been very confused?”_

_“When did you figure it out?”_

_“Brunch on Sunday.”_

_“Brunch? Wait, the brunch where you nearly choked to death on your eggs?”_

_“I didn’t nearly choke to death, okay, I was just surprised!”_

Nicke starts to laugh before he’s even done protesting; by the time he finishes, Nicke’s laying on the floor. That’s a much better thing to have caused.

_“Nicke?”_

_“Yeah?”_

_“Now what do we do?”_

Nicke grins up at him. _“What do you want to do?”_

What a dangerous question.

André has, in the past, play-flirted at Nicke. He does that to all of his friends, eventually, sometimes because it’s funny and sometimes because that’s just the way he is. There’s a difference between his play-flirting and real flirting, a difference that’s never been directed at Nicke before.

No time like the present, though.

He lets his lips turn up into a smirk and drags his gaze, ever-so-slowly, from Nicke’s beautiful blue eyes to the dimples that are disappearing, over the flush creeping up his throat, across a sweater he last saw in his own closet, all the way to Nicke’s toes. And then just as slowly back up, lingering just long enough to decide Nicke probably isn’t wearing a lot of layers under those sweats.

By the time he gets back to his face, Nicke is all the way red. André can hear him swallow over the rain outside.

He licks his lips, more because he’s a bit of an asshole than because he needs to. _“I’d really like to kiss you.”_

And then he waits. He has this suspicion that Nicke might be kind of demanding, maybe a little pushy like this, and it’s not really a secret that he’s more than a little bit into that in a person.

_“Well, are you going to come down here and do it?”_

Bingo. _“You only asked me what I wanted to do. You never said I could.”_

Nicke narrows his eyes at him for a moment, then closes his eyes and sighs. André is familiar with that look. It usually precedes a statement about how annoying he is.

 _“Why are you the most annoying person I know? How is that possible?”_ Nicke climbs to his feet. _“It’s almost like you enjoying pushing my buttons.”_ He snatches the quilt from André’s lap and flings into a chair.

 _“I haven’t pushed all of them yet, but I’m pretty sure I’m going to enjoy it.”_ He grins up at Nicke.

 _“That’s terrible.”_ Nicke drops into his lap, smirking himself at André’s “oof” at the sudden weight. _“You should probably stop talking and kiss me instead.”_

If he wants buttons pushed, who is André to deny that request? So instead of kissing Nicke on the mouth like he’s expecting, he kisses each dimple, his chin, the tip of his nose. He’s planning to get Nicke’s cheek next, find out how warm that flush is against his lips, when they reach the end of Nicke’s patience. He moves André’s face right where he wants it but kisses him so carefully, as if he’s afraid André will change his mind.

No one has ever kissed him like that before, like he's breakable, like he's _precious_ , like he's everything they've ever wanted.

It’s a lot, all these feelings he’s not used to in a kiss, and he thinks it will get overwhelming very fast. Instead, he tries to drag it back to where he’s more comfortable - straightforward sex, to the point and a little bit dirty.

He’s forgotten, however, that he’s kissing the most stubborn man currently in Sweden.

“ _No, no, if you really want to apologize to me for making me wait so long, you will let me do this my way.”_

Dear god. Nicke’s even better than he’d hoped.

“ _Yes, okay_ . _Please._ ”

Nicke’s grin is smug and sharp and dangerous and everything André didn’t know he was hoping for. “ _Good._ ” He climbs off André’s lap and holds a hand out. “ _Let’s go._ ”

 

****

 

The rain hasn’t let up at all, leaving Nicke’s bedroom dim. The sounds of the storm are louder here, and André feels isolated from the rest of the world.

Nicke steps right into his space, blocking out his view of the room. “ _Still okay?”_

His own smile almost hurts it’s so wide. “ _Yeah, still good. Where do you want me?”_

“ _Everywhere I can get you,_ ” Nicke sasses back with a wink. “ _We’re not going to rush this."_

In past situations, André would expect to be told to strip, pointed in the direction of the bed, and involved in some next-level foreplay before he’d completely settled. Nicke continues to be different than he’s expecting; he picks back up with the kissing, angled a little differently now that he’s shorter again. He waits until André’s squirmy and pulling at both their clothes before he maneuvers them closer to the bed.

He doesn’t strip André so much as unwrap him, which would feel a lot weirder if he wasn’t so clearly enjoying the process. The way Nicke looks at him… André would like to see that every time he closes his eyes forever.

By the time they’re both naked and horizontal, André is shaking out of his skin. He feels like his whole body is covered in static electricity that spikes whenever Nicke gets close.

He is not above begging.

“ _So here’s how this is going to go._ ”

Before he’s even finished the sentence, André is already twisting up onto his knees. He knows how this usually goes.

“ _Actually,_ ” Nicke puts a hand on his hip to hold him in place. “ _You’re going to fuck me._ ”

André blinks at him a few times. “ _But you wanted to be in charge?_ ”

“ _If you think I’m not going to be charge no matter what we’re doing, someone hasn’t been doing this right with you. You’re going to sit over there with your hands on your knees until I’m ready for you. And if you move, it’s going to take me even longer, so I wouldn’t recommend it.”_

André’s mouth has gone from painfully dry to putting him danger of choking on his own spit in the course of a sentence.

“ _André, I’m gonna need you to say something._ ”

“ _Yes, please, yes._ ”

He barely recognizes his own voice, but it’s good enough for Nicke. The corner of the bed he’s been relegated to doesn’t give him much of a view of what’s going on, but it doesn’t really matter. He’s going out of his mind; he can’t decide who he needs to touch more - Nicke or himself.

Every time Nicke twitches or shifts or makes the slightest noise, André digs his fingernails into his leg. He’s not sure he’d notice if he broke skin at this point; even that pain is barely registering.

He’s concentrating so hard on not moving that he doesn’t even see Nicke move, doesn’t see the condom packet until it hits him in the face. He flinches so badly he nearly topples off the bed.

Nicke, who is a much better person than André, manages not to laugh out loud at him, though his smile is less sharp and more fond. “ _Hurry up._ ”

There’s an awkward scramble that should go without acknowledgment as he fights with his balance on the edge of the bed, the awful plastic of the condom packet that refuses to open, and a slight trip over Nicke’s leg that almost has him face first into the bedside table. Really, Nicke is the only person who could watch all that and still want to fuck him.

“ _Slowly_.”

He tries. He really does. He’s struggling to keep to the pace Nicke approved and maintain any kind of rhythm. He just wants to be good for Nicke.

“ _Hey, hey, André, honey, you’re doing so well. Exactly what I asked for, baby, just what I wanted. So, so good. But now I need you to go faster.”_

He’s doing it right, Nicke’s not disappointed in him. The sheer relief is almost better than the noises Nicke makes when he finds the right rhythm.

It’s not better than Nicke’s face when he comes.

 

****

 

He’s tangled up with someone; he’s comfortable, just a little warmer than normal, and in no hurry to move. It takes another several seconds for his brain to come all the way back online and remind him that it’s Nicke and that’s probably why he’s not already halfway to the door.

The first thing he sees when he opens his eyes is a very bright light. It blinds him temporarily. When he can actually see, Nicke is watching him with a smile André’s never seen before.

“ _How are you feeling?_ ”

André remembers saying words is a thing he has done, but it’s not something he can remember how to do right now. He settles for a satisfied hum and a smile.

“ _That was kind of a lot for a first time, and we are going to talk about it later, okay._ ”

André nods and closes his eyes. Later sounds good. His eyelids are so heavy right now.

“ _Jesus, if I’d known this was a way to make you stop talking, I might have tried it sooner._ ”

Future André can argue about that. Right Now André is going to go to sleep.

 

****

 

It takes four and a half months for Nicke to actually get to D.C. to stay. Bureaucratic paperwork conspired to make André as miserable as possible for much too long. He had boxes of Nicke’s stuff in his apartment for ages, which sometimes made it worse. As he suspected, living 4,000 miles from your boyfriend is really unpleasant, but he survived.

They’ve spent the last two days unpacking Nicke’s stuff and rearranging the apartment to make it all fit. They’re both tired, and when he started to get hungry, the thought of having to cook or clean up made him want to cry. He may have nagged a little bit to get Nicke out the door, but now that they’re here, walking along the waterfront in Georgetown, Nicke’s starting to smile again.

“ _Are you happy you’re here?_ ”

Nicke looks away from the sailboats on the river to smile at him. “ _Yes. I’m going to keep saying yes, you know._ ”

“ _Do I?_ ”

Nicke grabs his hand and tugs him close enough that he can get both arms around André’s neck. “ _I appreciate that you were willing to go back to Sweden for me, but we both know you wouldn’t have been as happy there. And I’d rather be somewhere that both of us can be happy; so yes, I am happy that I’m here with you. Okay?_ ”

André tries to ignore the blush that is surely spreading across his face. “ _Okay._ ”

“ _Good. Now, where are we eating? I’m starving._ ”

André turns away from the waterfront. “ _There’s a bunch of places back in here that are pretty good. I like the Thai place over there._ ”

He turns to face Nicke, walking backwards ahead of him.

“ _I’ve been to all these places, so you should probably--_ ” There’s a split second where he recognizes there’s nothing under his foot, but he doesn’t have the time to react before he lands on his back in the water of the fountain, just in time for one of the jets to go off. Nicke’s laughter echoes off the surrounding buildings.

He lays there for a few seconds, accepting his fate. Even 4,000 miles from home, he’s still the guy falling into bodies of water. The difference this time is simple; he’s wading into the shallow water, holding his shoes in one hand.

“ _I think we might need to eat somewhere with outdoor tables._ ”

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Yes, that is *that* fountain. Couldn't resist the opportunity.
> 
> Questions? Comments? Hit me up! 
> 
> [Tumblr](https://leyley09.tumblr.com/) / [Twitter](https://twitter.com/ficenabler) / leyley09fic@gmail.com


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